FAMILY HISTORY NEWSLETTER
Volume II, Issue 11
20 November 2008
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LDS Church Revolutionizes
Family History
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has
been making revolutionary strides in family history
research in the last decade. New technology, including
digital cameras and server farms that allow massive
storage repositories, has allowed the church to rapidly
increase its mission to store genealogy for posterity.
The church has announced that thousands of digitized
records will be posted on the Internet. These include
family histories, city and county histories, historic city
directories and related records. The Allen Public
Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, BYU’s Harold B. Lee
Library, the Houston Public Library, the MidContinent Public Library of Missouri, and Family
Search’s Family History Library of Salt Lake City,
Utah, have joined together to create the largest
genealogical collection on the Internet. Researchers
are able
to use the records free at
www.familyhistoryarchive.byu.edu. Researchers can
also access Brigham Young University’s digitized
family histories on the site www.familysearch.org
under the family history library catalog.
The Church has embarked on an even more ambitious
project of combining all church-held family history
records online. The older LDS files are presently
maintained on the well- known family history website
– FamilySearch. These include the Ancestral File, a
Pedigree Resource File (containing over 150 million
searchable names), and the IGI or International
Genealogical Index. In preparation for the biggest
endeavor in family history to date, the church built a
server farm in Ashburn, Virginia, to house the newly
digitized, indexed combined family history records
held by the church. On June 28, 2006, the church
announced that it was developing a website called
New Family Search with a large unified database of
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Young women of York 2nd Ward
have been indexing census records
for The Church. Left to Right: Becca
Wagner, Kaylynne Shepp, Catherine
Patterson, and Candalyn Spahr.
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related family history. The New Family Search
has over one billion searchable names. In
addition, the church maintains records of
deceased and living members of the church.
Many of these databases have been combined
into www.new.familysearch.org.
While
working on New Family Search, Church
members now have the challenge of combining
all of the same individuals from the various files
into one file. While this site is available only to
church members at the present, it eventually will
be open to the public.
The “rollout” of New Family Search has taken
place in phases to test the capacity of the
Ashburn Server Farm. As it is tested, the
Family Search Support in the Joseph Smith
Memorial Building in Salt Lake City continues
1
to work out bugs and improve the system. York
County church members belong to the Washington DC Temple District, and local members
gained access to the new site on September 23.
122 of the 128 temple districts have now been
included in the rollout, and after all members
have access, the combined records will be
moved back to the www.FamilySearch.org site
and will be renamed Family Tree. Next the
church will open it to the public for research and
contribution of additional family history data.
Another endeavor of The Church of Jesus Christ
is the digitizing of its 370,000 microfilm rolls
with software called ScanStone, which was
developed by the church. These microfilm rolls
are maintained in the Granite Mountain Record
Vault located in the Wasatch Mountain near Salt
Lake City, UT.
http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/daily/fami
ly_history/granite_mountain_eom.htm.
The
projected date of the completion of the
digitizing project will be 2012.
The church has called for volunteers to index
these digitized records to make them userfriendly for the family history researcher. At
the present time, church members and other
volunteers are indexing census records. The
Church has also partnered with Ancestry.com
on this project. The Family History Library will
index all of the census years from 1790-1930
and post the indexes online free. Indexes for
1850, 1860, 1870, 1880 and 1900 are already
online. Presently, a researcher may access the
already digitized records at
www.labs.familysearch.org by clicking on
“Records Search.” Eventually the records will
be available at Family Search. Anyone desiring
to take part in the indexing may volunteer at
www.familysearchindexing.org.
Locally the York 2nd Ward has trained its youth
to participate in the indexing of census records.
Local family history consultants Jack and Sylvia
Sonneborn of York Township attended a young
ladies’ social event in July and presented the
details of Family Search Indexing to the young
women. The youth director Karen Markle of
York and her advisors then challenged the
young women to participate in the indexing
project on their home computers. In return, the
young girls would gain recognition by receiving
charms for their bracelets. Those young ladies
who have been working on the indexing include
Annette Miles, Shrewsbury;
Kimmie and
Rebecca Wagner and Kaylynne Shepp,
Dallastown Borough; Brittany, Kerianne and
Candalyn Spahr, Yoe; and Catherine Patterson,
York Township. Little did the youth leaders
anticipate the enthusiasm of these young girls
for indexing census records. By November
2008, these young women had overshot their
goals and have continued to work on the project
to help the church complete the indexing faster
than projected.
The Church of Jesus Christ maintains a free
genealogical library at the local building at 2100
Hollywood Drive. Co-directors of the York
Family History Center Sam and Glenda Yaksich
of York invite individuals to use the center for
research 9 a.m.- noon M and Th; 7:00-9:00
p.m. T-Th; and 9 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. on Saturdays.
Not only are the church’s research assistants
available for consultation but there are also free
subscriptions to Footnote, Godfrey Memorial
Library, Heritage Quest/ProQuest, Kindred
Konnections; and World Vital Records for
patron use. A software for organizing one’s
family history records called Personal Ancestral
File (PAF) is also available to download free at
www.familysearch.org, and the assistants can
demonstrate how to use PAF to store and
organize one’s family history records.
Twenty years ago a group of PAF enthusiasts
organized a genealogy club. Latter-day Saint
Jack Sonneborn will be the 2009 president of
the local Susquehanna Trail Genealogy Club,
which meets at 7:00 p.m. on the fourth Thursday
at the York Chapel on Hollywood Drive.
Interested parties are invited to join. While the
club began as a PAF Users Group, it has
2
evolved into a genealogy club because its
members realized the need for expansion of
topics as more and more family history
information and databases became available for
research. Mark Gagermeier, vice president of
the club, maintains a website at this address
with information about club programs and a
listing of the names its members have
researched for collaboration with others with the
same families:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~pastgc/index.html
Anyone wishing to join STGC may contact Jack
Sonneborn at 717-757-2331.
The STGC also presented a successful family
history conference in April at the York LDS
Chapel, and several of its members have also
been presenters at family history conferences in
Essex, MD, Lancaster and other locations. In
the spring of 2009, Jack and Sylvia Sonneborn
of York Township will also be teaching a sixweek class on family history through the Osher
Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Penn State
York. Interested individuals may learn more
about the genealogy course at olli@yk.psu.edu.
Two Church members with ties to York County
also maintain a large repository of family
history online with concentration of families
from York County and the surrounding area.
Webmasters Don and Jeanine Hartman of
Bountiful, Utah, recently updated their site to
include 577,221 names and 202,591 families.
Most names are of Pennsylvania Dutch
extraction, being found in every State of the
Union. Anyone interested in contributing to this
website may send his family history to
FamilyHart@aol.com. One can also access the
database at these two sites:
http://www.linkhitlist.com/cgi/LHL_E.exe?G2L
&LinkNo=1456853&ListNo=30907
http://midatlantic.rootsweb.com/familyhart/
Locally another Latter-day Saint family history
researcher Harry Senft of Dover, who is a
member of the Lewisberry Ward, has been
photographing cemeteries in York County.
Webmaster Kathy Francis has posted many of
Senft’s photographs online at
http://www.usgwarchives.org/pa/york/yccemete
ries.htm.
This allows individuals to find ancestors’
tombstones online and retrieve vital statistics for
their records without physically walking
through local cemeteries.
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ have
made outstanding contributions to the field of
genealogy. Doing family history has become a
favorite pastime of researchers as they seek their
roots, and now being a pajama-slipper
researcher is possible with the help of the
Latter-day Saints.
Sylvia Sonneborn, Contributor
For copies of Genealogy News, go to
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~payork/Yor
k2Ward/
Thanks to Don and Jeanine Hartman of Utah
for posting the newsletter online for us. You
can contribute your family history of original
York County ancestors at
http://familyhart.info
This newsletter is compiled by Jack and
Sylvia Sonneborn, family history consultants
of the York 2nd Ward, for use within the
ward. It is also e-mailed to parties interested
in family history, but it is not an official
publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints.
Contact Jack or Sylvia at
klompen@verizon.net or
slysyl@verizon.net
3
Vital Records Worldwide
Country Listings
Ancestor Roots Information:
OneSource Genealogy & Family
History
Searchable Databases
http://www.academicgenealogy.com/ancestorrootsinformationdatabas
es.htm
Every available site in the world has been
placed online, with information related to
civil records, culture, genealogy, libraries,
museums, printed country family history
outlines, country studies groups, individual
identity information, indigenous peoples, etc.
Regional Genealogy and Local History
Research:
Local History and Genealogy Portals to the
World.
http://www.academicgenealogy.com/regionalgenealogy.htm
Regional genealogy and local history research
includes:
areas, countries, directories, ethnic group
populations, organizations, local ancestry and
local history studies.
Schools - Colleges - Universities:
Alumni and Genealogy Education,
http://www.academicgenealogy.com/schoolscollegesuniversities.htm
now includes comprehensive University list,
noted among the top 500 best ranked sites,
with A to Z indexes. Each country or national
designation has academic country studies,
from major universities or area study groups.
National education resources and key links
are included, to connect with local libraries
and their regional subject guides, allowing
total overview from the largest and earliest
originating universities and research sources.
All Universities and Higher Education
Institutions have connective Wikipedia sites,
providing thereby links to notable student
organizations and notable people, as well as key
organizations and systems.
Respectfully yours,
Tom Tinney, Sr.
Who's Who in America,
Millennium Edition [54th] through 2004
Who's Who In Genealogy and Heraldry, [both
editions]
Family Genealogy & History Internet Education
Directory
http://www.academic-genealogy.com/
Professional worldwide humanities and social
sciences mega portal, connected directly to
thousands of related sub-sets, with billions of
primary or secondary database family history
and genealogy records. It encompasses all other
key worldwide genealogy and surname sites.__
MILES MEYER ‘S BLOG AND
NEWSLETTER
As a supplement to my usual FHC newsletter I
have created a blog. You can visit it and sign up
for posts to be forwarded to your e-mail.
http://milesgenealogy.blogspot.com/
As always, my newsletters and lesson plans will
continue to be posted at my website
http://milesmeyer.googlepages.com/
I hope these additions will provide you with
more timely information.
Also access at
http://milesmeyer.googlepages.com/newsletters
4
Miles Meyer
John Jarman
Temple Recorder
NEW FAMILY SEARCH
MEMBER’S GUIDE
For those with access to new FamilySearch, you
can download the new Member's Guide from
new FamilySearch.
Go to new FamilySearch
Help Center
Training and Resources
FamilySearch Overviews and Guides
Under "Guides", select the Member's Guide to
Temple and Family History Work (PDF)
Rebecca Christensen
Note: The guide is updated frequently and is
long. Because of length & updating, you might
want to wait before you run it off. Sylvia
MARK GAGERMEIER RECCOMMENDS
HTTP://ANCESTRYINSID ER.BL
OGSPOT.COM/SEARCH/LABEL/
DNA
Participants in Relative Genetics DNA Groups
received notification recently that Ancestry is
ready to move their DNA Group projects from
the Relative Genetics website to the DNA
Ancestry website. This is scheduled to occur on
30-April-2008. The Relative Genetics website
will remain available through 1-July-2008,
although any changes made there in May will
not be replicated to the Ancestry website.
CORRECTION ON WHAT TO DO IF ONLY
A WOMAN’S FIRST NAME IS AVAILABLE
If only a valid first or given name is known, a
valid ordinance can be performed. The
New.FamilySearch system is pedigree based
for the purpose of duplicate checking.
Therefore, the use of the husband’s LAST
name with the wife’s first name is not
necessary.
Family History Lesson Series
Family history consultants are often asked to
teach family history classes. The Family History
Department is developing resources that
consultants can use to teach these classes. A
new series of family history lessons is now
available through FamilySearch.org. These short
lessons are available for download in .pdf
format. They may be used as self-study or as
supplemental lessons for family history
consultants who teach family history classes.
The following lessons are available:








Lesson 1: Perform Descendancy Research
Lesson 2: Conduct Family History
Interviews
Lesson 3: Involve Children and Youth in
Family History
Lesson 4: Write a Personal History
Lesson 5: Create a Family History
Lesson 6: Involve Your Extended Family in
Family History
Lesson 7: Use the Internet for Family
History Research
To access these lessons, follow these steps:
Go to www.familysearch.org
In the “What’s New” section, click Family
History Lesson Series provides useful guides.
From Family Search Support
"No matter how bleak the chapter of
our lives may look today, because of
the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ
we may hope and be assured that
the ending of the book of our lives
will exceed our grandest
expectations."
5
President Dieter Uchtdorf, Gen Conf 2008
Sylvia
INCLINE SOFTWARE HAS RELEASED
VERSION 12.1 OF ANCESTRAL QUEST
PAF INSIGHT CHANGES NAME
Salt Lake City, Utah (November 12, 2008) –
Today, Incline Software, LC announced the full
release of Ancestral Quest 12.1. AQ 12.1 has
been released in phases since July, 2008, when
AQ 12.1 entered the first phase of a roll-out,
wherein it was made available to a limited
number of users of both AQ and PAF. As of
today, AQ 12.1 is available to all users.
All of the new features introduced in Ancestral
Quest version 12.1 are designed to aid a user in
comparing and synchronizing local databases
with
the
Family Tree
database
of
new.FamilySearch.org,
a
system
being
developed by The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints (LDS). The Family Tree
database claims to have roughly 500 million
lineage-linked records, and these records
become directly accessible to users of AQ 12.1
through these new features. An adjustment has
also been made to the way a new user can try
Ancestral Quest. AQ 12.1 now provides a 60day free trial of the program with all features
fully unlocked.
For FHCs, Ancestral Quest is always free. For
individuals, there is a 60-day free trial. In either
case, go to www.ancquest.com to download
the free trial. AQ 12.1 is a FamilySearch
certified
PAF
Add-in.
In
using
it to connect your PAF data with nFS, you'll feel
like you're using an upgraded version of PAF
which has tools to connect .paf data to nFS.
Note: Jack and I have been using Ancestral
Quest to sync our own records to New Family
Search, and we are really enjoying using it. On
“Manual” you can send information back and
forth by checking appropriate boxes. It makes
the interchange of information easy.
For those of you who are a part of the PAF
Insight mailing list, you already know this.
But for the benefit of others, especially any who
have lists of resources, the PAF Insight yahoo
group has been renamed. It's now the
Family_Insight group. You may want to update
any references, handouts or bookmarks you
have.
The group email address:
Family_Insight@yahoogroups.com
The group home page location:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Family_Insight
From Russell
Ancestry.ca and FamilySearch
Announce Agreement to
Digitize and Index Existing
Canadian Censuses
11 November 2008
Joint initiative provides online access to
comprehensive collection of Canadian censuses
a
TORONTO, ON—Ancestry.ca, Canada's leading
online family history website, is pleased to announce
a joint initiative with FamilySearch International, a
nonprofit organization that maintains one of the
world's largest repositories of genealogical
resources. The joint initiative will allow the
organizations to improve online access to a
comprehensive collection of Canadian censuses.
As part of the agreement, FamilySearch will digitize
and index Canadian census records that
Ancestry.ca has acquired. These digitized and
indexed records will then be made available to
Ancestry.ca members on the company's website,
and in time the indexes will also be available to the
public at FamilySearch.org. The images will be free
6
to qualified FamilySearch members
FamilySearch family history centers.
and
all
FamilySearch will deliver images and indexes to
Ancestry.ca for censuses from 1861, 1871, 1881
and 1916 Censuses to launch online in 2009. In
return, Ancestry.ca will provide images and indexes
to FamilySearch for the 1851, 1891, 1901 and 1906
Censuses.
CLEAN UP AND COMBINE
RECORDS IN NFS
Since we are now using New Family Search, I
would like to reiterate some of the basic things
that we should be following:
1.
It is not advisable to upload an
entire GEDCOM to New Family Search
because it will probably cause
complications. If you do want to upload
perhaps just a family, use the tab “Add
Information.” If you were wondering
how to do temple work for non-related
friends, this is also the tab to use. Here
are the functions of that tab:
Add Information
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Add a Family or Individual That Is
Connected to My Family Tree (Go to Me and
My Ancestors)
Add a Family That Is Not Connected
to My Family Tree
Add an Individual That Is Not
Connected to My Family Tree
Contribute a GEDCOM File
Add a TempleReady Submission
2.
If you know that in the past that
you have done temple work, and it is
now showing as completed, chances
are you have not done enough
combining. Do Advanced search for
your ancestor and check for
duplicates for the spouse and children
and then combine before checking
temple work.
3.
I find it useful to work on one
family at a time on the pad below the
pedigree. In the Spouse and Children
screen, use the ball arrows in front of the
name to combine siblings or dispute
relationships with parents. Then do
additional checking by highlighting each
name and clicking on “Possible
Duplicates.” I have found that one child
might have a duplicate set of parents, and
then I have to combine the parents again.
Clean up and combine parents and
children. Then click on the temple icon in
front of the father’s name to see the
temple work. From that view, you can do
the remaining temple work for the whole
family at the same time if there is a need.
Just click on assign to someone else or
indicate that you will do the work
yourself. That’s how easy it is to do
temple work.
4.
Check on your temple work by
clicking on the “Temple Ordinances” tab
at the top. I find this a little confusing
about who is doing the work. So I go to
www.labs.familysearch.org
If you click on “Family Tree” and sign
in using New Family Search userword
and password, you can click on Temple
and see a summary of your temple work,
telling you whether the temple is doing
the work or whether you have designated
that you will provide proxies yourself.
5.
I also found an interesting
pedigree chart on the “Pedigree Viewer
on the same site. You have to upload
your GEDCOM, and then your pedigree
appears. You can even print it out from
here. Very interesting!
Sylvia
SENFT’S CEMETERY RECORDS
Check here for another York County cemetery
photographed by Harry Senft of Dover.
http://usgwarchives.net/pa/adams/1picts/cemeter
ies/mt-olivet-latimore/mt.olivet.htm
7
Thanksgiving & Family History
If God Had a Refrigerator
Thanksgiving is an ideal time to share your
family history. If you have relatives coming for
Thanksgiving, get your records out now, and
make a list of your questions. Ask them to bring
their records. You might want to suggest that
they put their records in the car right then, so
they aren't forgotten. Keep in mind that your
questions serve several purposes; to extend the
information on your charts, to give you clues for
further research, and to gather life history of the
family, especially your focus ancestor. Any
information that contributes to these purposes is
desirable. Some pieces of information are more
important than others. Some are more
interesting.
Source: Michael G. McManness, Hobien-L
Archives, 21 Nov 2001
If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be
on it.
If he had a wallet, your photo would be in it.
He sends flowers every spring and a sunrise
every morning.
Whenever you want to talk, He'll listen.
He can live anywhere in the universe, and He
chose your heart.
What about the Christmas gift He sent you in
Bethlehem;
Not to mention that Friday at Calvary.
Face it. He's crazy about you."
CIVIL WAR DATABASES
31 October 2008
The new Civil War databases - Alexander Street
Press - can be accessed through the FHC
portal. Thanks to Rebecca Christensen for this
item.
The Training and Resources tab in the Help
Center in the new FamilySearch is now
available to everyone who uses the new
FamilySearch. Anyone who selects the Help
Center option will see the tab and have access to
helpful resources, including the new
FamilySearch E-Learning courses.
Although all members will benefit from being
able to go through the new FamilySearch ELearning courses, the lessons will especially
help members who use the new FamilySearch in
languages other than English or Spanish.
Currently, the Overviews in the new
FamilySearch are available only in English and
Spanish. The new FamilySearch E-Learning
courses are available in English, Spanish,
Portuguese, French, German, Chinese, Japanese,
and Korean. Although the E-Learning courses
are not exactly the same as the Overviews, their
content is very similar.
Family history consultants should encourage the
members in their wards or branches, especially
those who use the new FamilySearch in
Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Chinese,
Question:
I have heard that it is necessary to change USA
to United States in all of our existing
genealogical records for NewFamilySearch. Is
that correct? If so, is that for just the birth place
or all lines containing a date!
Answer:
NewFamilySearch's place standardization does
use United States rather than USA. However, it
will make the change automatically as you type,
and you can click on the correct location. And
yes, it applies to ALL place fields, not just the
birth place.
Houston Public Library Joins with
FamilySearch to Publish Gulf Coast State
Histories Online Click for Renee’s Blog
Beryl L. Hendrickson
Training and Resources Tab Now
Available to All
8
Japanese, or Korean, to go through the new
FamilySearch E-Learning courses so they can
become more familiar with how to use the new
FamilySearch.
To access the new FamilySearch E-Learning
courses, members do the following:
 Log in to the new FamilySearch at
www.new.familysearch.org.

Select Help Center.

Select Training and Resources.

Select E-Learning Courses
TEAM VIEWER
Remote control is great for helping someone
who is not at your location. At
Ohana Software we use TeamViewer to do
remote control sessions when someone
is having a problem with PAF Insight or
FamilyInsight
that
isn't
solved
quickly by phone or email. With their
permission
you get
to see exactly
what is on their screen and even take control of
their computer while they watch. It is simple,
and free for non-commercial personal use. Go to
www.teamviewer.com.
Improvements Made to Ellis Island Database
Just yesterday, a major improvement was made
to the Ellis Island database titled Ellis Island
Passenger Arrival Records (1892–1924) at
WorldVitalRecords.com. In the past, individuals
who clicked on a result from this database
(containing content from The Statue of LibertyEllis Island Foundation) were sent to The Statue
of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation’s website
sign-up screen. Now, when they click on the
link to access that database, they are sent
immediately to the record. Click here to search
the Ellis Island Passenger Arrival Records
(1892–1924). This database is free to access.
Tips from Lida Larkin
TIPS BY LIDA LARKIN
I taught a couple of classes this month and
thought I’d share some of the information I had
on my handout. You may find some interesting
helps there. (lida)
Internet Archive http://www.archive.org/details/texts - find books
now available online that are out of copy right.
Type name in search bar and then click on left
side on b/w pdf for printing. Some are LOTS of
pages.
*****
Ogden Regional Family History Center www.orfhc.org/desktop - Sign up for their
newsletter
Click on What’s new - articles - the 2008
Conference handouts - “Back Door & Rear
Window Research Strategies”
Click on links and check out links at
ORFHC for “How to Care for Flash Drives.”
and “Family History Consultants - Most Used
Online Links.”
Go back to articles and check out
“Websites that Multitask for You” - RSS
(Really simple Syndication) like digital
newspapers - to show headlines for new content
to your favorite websites - suggestions for RSS
Readers: www.netvibes.com &
http://www.google.com/reader/view#directorwelcome-page
Social Bookmarking at http://del.icio.us/
- like favorites in Internet Explorer or your
Bookmarks in Mozilla - but saves website links
online instead of to your computer so no matter
where you are, you can get online & find your
links.
*****
New FamilySearch Wiki www.wiki.familysearch.org.- good idea to
register so you can add or make changes to
information. This is a research site, not a
names-finding site. All Research Papers and
Research Guidance are being moved from
9
Family Search to here. Click on “learn how to
get started on this site.” Watch the overviews.
Check out “Get Started in Research” especially “Rookie Mistakes.”
*****
Linkpendium USA http://www.linkpendium.com/genealogy/USA/ created by the 2 people who created RootsWeb has well over 5 million links. Try it out by
typing in a family name to search for.
If you find a family book listed, try
AbeBooks, AilbrisBrooks, or Half.com to see if
there is one available. They often have out-ofprint books at a good price.
*****
NewFamilySearch Labs www.labs.familysearch.org - see all the new
exciting records available for searching from the
Indexing program. Record Search - click on
country - or “view all collections.” Try them
out.
Check out Family Tree and the other
programs they’re developing.
*****
Tips for Citing Sources: - recording where you
found the information about the individual.
This is necessary to evaluate the research and
determine if we can trust it.
A source has 3 types of information:
source description, citation, and repository.
Type in your sources as you work so you don’t
forget them. Write down the entire description.
When photocopying from a book, copy both
sides of the title page. Provide enough info so
people can find the source again.
*****
Hints on Reading Old Handwriting http://ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?art
icle=796 http://www.kipsperry.comis a good
website for information on reading old
documents - read Kip’s Tips. Recognize that
many words were written phonetically. Try
writing the word - compare to other words read through first fast and recognize what words
you can- then slowly. Isolate an unknown letter
and try another letter in its place to see if it
makes sense.
In the article on Kip’s Tips you can find a link
for “Deciphering Old Handwriting” by Sabrina J
Murray - an excellent article. Also another link
for “Old Handwriting Samples.”
*****
Picking the Low Hanging Fruit - Finding
your Cousins. Start from your fifth generation
and come back down the tree. Other cousins
may have information or family treasures you
don’t have. Instead of 31 family group sheets
with 155 people, you could have 12,496 family
group sheets with more than 62,000 people if
each family had five children. These are your
3rd cousins or closer. Your genealogy isn’t all
done.
*****
5,000 and counting digitized Family Histories
can be accessed online from BYU at
www.lib.byu.edu/online.html or
www.familyhistoryarchives.byu.edu
*****
One Step Search Tools - www.stevemorse.org
(org not com)
*****
Utah Digital Newspapers - just type it in
Google and choose which newspapers to search.
It’s a work in progress. For other states type
United States Newspaper Program and click
on the state you want.
*****
Matt Combs developed a free program called
Surname Suggestion List. Type that in Google
- then click on the link and download it. Type
in the name and get suggestions for other
possibilities. Have names ready and type in
each one and copy what looks like it might
work. When you click “finished,” the program
disappears and asks for a donation. It might be
worthwhile to donate $10 and keep the program
- or not.
*****
To Contact lida larkin
momuv712@gmail.com
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SYLVIA’S FAMILY HISTORY PUZZLE
I testify that when we do all we can I testify that w
to accomplish the work that is before to accomplish
us, the Lord will make available to us us, the Lord w
the sacred key needed to unlock the the sacred key
treasure which we so much seek.
treasure which
I always try to pass on some interesting family
history stories that happen to me as I do my
research. A puzzling one happened on our
youth trip to Manhattan on July 19. I was not
needed in the baptistry, so I did a different
session. While there, the electricity began to
malfunction, and we waited till it was fixed.
Finally the electrical system failed, and a
counselor in the temple presidency had to read
the script live, and then we experienced
difficulties with the electric curtains. But we
completed the session.
President Thomas S. Monson
President
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Meanwhile, 104 of my ancestors were being
baptized by proxy on a lower floor. Later, I
received my stamped cards and later handed
them into my temple district in Washington DC
to complete the work (prior to going on NFS).
Little did I realize that about 64 of them had not
been recorded in Manhattan even though they
were stamped as completed – either because of
the electric problem or something else.
Over 30 million names or record images were
added to FamilySearch’s RecordSearch pilot.
Significant data was published from 3 U.S.
Census indexing projects (1850, 1860, and
1870). Digital image collections were added for
Massachusetts, Argentina, Brazil, Czech
Republic, Louisiana, Russia, Spain, and
Vermont (see the table below).
The entire collection can be searched for free
online at http://pilot.familysearch.org or through the
In a few short weeks, the other ordinances had
been performed in the Washington Temple, but
it appeared on New Family Search that the
baptisms and confirmations had not been done.
Family Search Support suggested that I take
them to my temple to straighten out the
problem, but I had only 22 of the cards back. I
found out that I may be on a pending list in
Manhattan as the work is going forward so fast
that they still have pages to record. Sooner or
later I should see the work showing up on New
Family Search.
Search Records feature at FamilySearch.org.
At the present it appears as if I did temple work
out of sequence. I just hope that no one else
will go into NFS and try to redo the baptisms
and confirmations before they get recorded.
The message that I want to impart is that there
are still snags in the system, and the best we can
do is be patient and try to work them out with
Family History Support or our temple. I am
certain that the temple will find a solution.
FAMILY SEARCH’S
RECORD SEARCH
___________________________
1850 United States Census (Population) index & images
1850 US Census (Slave)
1850 US Census (Mortality)
1860 US Census
1870 US Census
1865 MA Census
1855 Argentina, Buenos Aires Census,
Brazil, Rio de Janeiro Civil Registration
Czech, Republic (Opava) Church Books
Louisiana War of 1812 Pensions Lists
Russia, St Petersburg Lutheran Church
Spain, Ciudad Real Catholic Diocese
Vermont Enrolled Militia Records
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